PARK, J. Walter, M.D., specialist in diseases of the eye,
ear, nose and throat, was born in what is now Carsonville, Dauphin county, Pa.,
October 22, 1855. He is a son of George and Lucetta Park. His father was born in
Jefferson township, and is a son of Robert Park, a native of England, who was
one of the first settlers of that township, took up a tract of land, cleared a
farm, and lived and died there. He was a member of the M.E. church. He reared a
family of five children, of whom George was the next to the oldest, and was
reared on the homestead, with the ordinary educational advantages of the
situation. He started in on farm work, and afterwards engaged in buying and
shipping stock from the west to the eastern markets. He afterwards had a store
at Carsonville for a few years. He subsequently engaged in the lumber business
in Clark’s Valley, shipping lumber to the Harrisburg Car Works and the Lykens
Valley Coal Company, and was a member of the firm of the Fifth Wheel Works of
Millersburg, Pa. He was also in the lumber business in Centre county, furnishing
props and mining timber for the coal companies at Shamokin and Lykens, Pa. Mr.
Park belonged to the Democratic party, but for the last few years of his life
was identified with the Prohibitionist party. He was an active member of the M.E.
church, and prominent in Trinity church, Powell’s Valley, Pa., filling all of
the important church offices; he was a licensed exhorter. He was once nominated
for poor director, and served in numerous township offices. He died August 17,
1892, and his wife died January 12, 1895. They had a family of six children,
namely: Sarah J., wife of John Sheetz, of Carsonville; Arthur, of Harrisburg,
with the Reading Railroad Company; Dr. J.W.; Thomas R., of Millersburg; Alice
and Harriet, who both died in infancy.

J. Walter was reared in his native township to the age of
seventeen years, and was educated in the public schools. He went to Chester,
Pa., to study the drug business, but finding it to confining, he did not long
remain there. He returned home and read medicine with Dr. H. R. Caslow, of
Halifax. He attended the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, and was
graduated in 1878. In May, 1879, he was married to Miss Ida L. Haverstick,
daughter of Mrs. Susan Haverstick, of Millersburg, Pa. He practiced medicine in
Williamstown, Dauphin county, up to 1889. In this year he went to Europe. He was
clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital for six months. He
studied three months in Berlin, Germany, and three months in Paris, in the
various eye, ear, nose and throat hospitals. He returned the last of the year to
New York City, and was with Dr. Herman Knapp in his institute up to March 1,
1890. During this course he perfected his studies of the eye, ear, nose and
throat. On March 1, 1890, he came to Harrisburg, where he has since practiced,
and is the leading specialist in the city. In the fall of 1890 he was elected a
surgeon of the eye, ear, nose and throat department of the City Hospital, and to
the same place in the Children’s Industrial Home. He is also special examiner
for the Pension Department of the Government. He is a member and ex-president of
the Dauphin County Medical Society, a member of the State Medical Society of
Pennsylvania, fellow of Harrisburg Academy of Medicine, Pan-American Medical
Congress, and the American Medical Association. He is a charter member and one
of the directors of the Harrisburg Real Estate and Improvement Company, a
stockholder in the Harrisburg Trust Company, Harrisburg Electric Company and the
Pennsylvania Steel Company, Steelton, Pa. He is also a member of the Masonic
fraternity. In politics he is a Democrat, and was formerly active in party
matters